Congress took steps to quickly expand access to telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic .
Now 30 senators are calling for those changes to become permanent.
Senator Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, wrote a letter (PDF) urging Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and minority leader Charles Schumer, D-New York, to support expanding access to telehealth services on a permanent basis so that it remains an option for Medicare beneficiaries both now and after the pandemic.
“Doing so would assure patients that their care will not be interrupted when the pandemic ends. It would also provide certainty to health care providers that the costs to prepare for and use telehealth would be a sound long-term investment,” Schatz wrote in the letter, which was co-signed by a bipartisan group of senators including Commerce Chair Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi; Mark Warner, D-Virginia; Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina; and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota.
Excerpt from MobiHealth News May 2020 — Announcement of new funding for Higi and their blood pressure self-check machines. Installed in thousands of locations. With new legislation on telemedicine its a pretty good guess that the Higi station will evolve from a relatively singular purpose to a multi-functional health station. Scheduling vaccine comes to mind…Editors
Higi, the maker of health kiosks found in retail pharmacies and groceries, has raised $30 million in a new funding round led by symptom-check chatbot service Babylon Health. The raise also included participation from Higi’s prior backers, including 7Wire Ventures, Flare Capital Partners, Jumpstart Capital, Rush University Medical Center for Health and William Wrigley Jr.
WHAT THEY DO
Higi’s health kiosks are equipped to administer quick tests for blood pressure, pulse, weight and BMI. The free-to-use Smart Health Stations are self-service, deployed in retail businesses and feed consumers a breadth of digital content focused on health-condition prevention and management. The kiosks will also provide consumers personalized recommendations for nearby health services.
According to the company, more than 10,000 these kiosks have so far been used by 62 million people, and are located within five miles of 73% of the U.S. population.
Kaiser Permanente Playbook Guidelines for Return to Work
May 2020 Kaiser Permanente has released 98 page playbook on how they recommend getting back to work with your employees and guests. You can visit their link here.
Keeping your workforce safe being the key point.
This playbook is meant to offer useful tools for you and your
leadership teams to make your workplaces as safe as possible
and support your employees in the best way possible. It includes:
A framework outlining the various dimensions of health to consider
as your employees start returning to work in this “next normal”
post–COVID-19 era
Guidance, recommendations, and curated tools and resources on
how to safely restart work, according to the dimensions of health
outlined in the framework.
Information on our clinical services and resources available to your
employees who are Kaiser Permanente members.
We’ll continue to evolve this content as guidance and circumstances
change. For additional questions, please contact your Kaiser
Permanente account manager.
The COVID-19 pandemic is taking its toll on an unlikely mark: the Department of Veterans Affairs‘ new electronic health record system.
VA officials told congressional leaders last month that the system’s initial rollout, already delayed once this year, will be suspended indefinitely during the pandemic to let health care professionals focus on patient care.
According to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, work will continue behind the scenes on the $16 billion project, but the department won’t burden staff members with a new system during the national emergency.
“Our priority is the care of veterans and providing surge capabilities for civilian health care systems. Our clinical personnel and medical resources are focused on caring for veterans and addressing the current pandemic,” Wilkie wrote in an April 3 letter to legislators who oversee VA policy and appropriations.
In February, the VA announced a delay in initial deployment of the system, created by Cerner Corp., scheduled for March at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. Officials said the wait was necessary to make sure the system works within the VA’s information technology framework and employees were trained to use it.
Epic and Cerner maintained the largest shares of the EHR market for acute care hospitals in 2019. However, Cerner experienced a net decrease in market share for the first time since 2010, according to a recent KLAS Research report.
For its “U.S. Hospital EMR Market Share 2020” report, KLAS Research analyzed vendors in use at 5,457 acute care hospitals across the U.S.
Kiosks are a self-service, touch screen device that allows enrolled Veterans to have convenient control and access to their health information, enhance Veterans’ experience with VA and offer Veterans self-serving activities such as:
Check-in for scheduled appointments
View future appointments
Manage, review and update personal and insurance information
Apply for reimbursement of travel to appointments
More discreetly provide information they may view as sensitive, such as age or race/ethnicity
Apply for beneficiary travel mileage reimbursement
Request medical records
Manage their account balance
Review and reconcile medication and allergy information for wellness and safety – Coming Soon!
Pay your Copay bill – Coming Soon!
More self-serving activities are coming!
Where can you find a Kiosk?
Kiosks are conveniently located in VA medical centers and community based outpatient clinics across the U.S. Below is a list of VA facilities where you will find Kiosks. More Kiosks are being added weekly! Most facilities have staff or volunteers dedicated to help guide and assist you in using the Kiosks.
Improving your Experience with VA
Increases customer satisfaction
Reduces time spent waiting in line
Promotes workflow efficiency
Enhances data quality
Strengthens patient safety
Reduces check-in waiting time
Empowers Veterans to maintain accurate personal health record information (e.g., address, demographic information)
Increases seamless communication between the front desk and back offices of clinics
Provides more flexibility and efficiency for VA staff as they serve Veterans
Adds continuity to insurance capture activities
Automates certain administrative processes, such as generating forms (e.g., release of information), wristbands and labels (e.g., labs) – coming soon!
Log-in
To log in or use to the Kiosk, you will need to enter your name, SSN and date of birth, or simply use your Veterans’ Health Identification Card (VHIC) to log in.
How to Check-in for Appointments
Select the “Check-in for Appointment” option.
Use the bar code scanner to read your Veterans Health Identification Card (VHIC). Forget your VHIC? You can also enter your social security number.
Enter your date of birth and verify your identity.
Update your address, phone number, and personal information using the touchscreen keypad, as needed.
Confirm your appointment.
Coming soon! Pay your Copay Bills using the Kiosks
Coming to a kiosk near you! No more standing in long lines to pay your copay bills at the medical center! Veterans will soon have another payment option available on the Kiosk to pay their copay bill.
A typical hospital EHR project can take at least a year. A team at health IT giant Epic has been able to stand up technology at field hospitals in COVID hot spots in a matter of days.
In all, the Wisconsin-based EHR vendor has helped to bring online 440 alternative care facilities to help expand hospital capacity throughout the country in the past four weeks. Epic has worked with 175 health systems, public health authorities and state and local governments to add up to 80,000 beds nationwide.
The key is to get creative, Epic executive Nick Frenzer told FierceHealthcare.
“We try to make it as ‘plug and play’ as possible,” Frenzer said.
Epic is providing the software, staff, and strategy for these projects at no cost. It partnered with tech giant Apple to provide some of the hardware that was needed for clinical staff such as laptops and iPads.
“We try to do as much as possible with mobile devices. We get a laptop and 30 phones and we can make that work,” Frenzer said, adding they stood up special workflows and streamlined processes for clinicians. “We want to ensure that IT does not impede providing patient care.”
As news reports detail the impact COVID-19 will have on our population and the healthcare system that serves it, many medical facilities have put systems in place to streamline services and keep frontline workers safe. Once the pandemic ends, these same procedures will remain, with clinics and hospitals looking to invest in strategies to maintain efficiency and facilitate patient and employee health.
Emergent technology like healthcare kiosks will be especially important to care providers moving forward, helping to restructure patient check-in, keep staff protected from communicable diseases, and offer easy telehealth options to less critical cases.
Healthcare kiosks streamline patient check-in
Simplifying processes continues to be an essential focus for the healthcare system, with facilities relying on websites to distribute information and nurse lines to vet cases that need to be seen immediately. These same types of efficiencies can be carried out in waiting rooms.
Offering patient check-in kiosks gives people control over their own registration process, ensuring less errors in recorded personal information and providing easy means to apply copays or pay bills at the kiosk. Streamlining these procedures frees front desk staff from data entry and allows them to focus on other tasks like scheduling or answering questions.
Delegating more control over the check-in process to the patient ensures hospital or clinic staff can concentrate on what’s most important – providing top medical care.
Minimize human-to-human contact with medical kiosks
The extensive spread of the novel coronavirus has spurred significant conversations about keeping public-facing employees safe in a variety of industries. This issue is especially vital in the healthcare industry where essential front desk staff are tasked with checking in potentially ill patients.
This greater awareness of human-to-human contact will live on with new measures to safeguard employees. Medical check-in kiosks can provide an important solution to the goal of maintaining proper social distance.
When patients can check in at a self-service kiosk, counter staff no longer risk being exposed to germs from sick individuals. Additionally, healthcare kiosks are easily disinfected. Staff can be tasked with cleaning the units, or kiosks can be outfitted with special attachments to hold sanitizing wipes or gel for patients.
Expect a solid future for telemedicine kiosks
As hospitals and clinics concentrate on keeping non-emergent illnesses out of facilities in order to make room for more critical cases, the use of telehealth options has increased.
With that, people are gaining a greater comfort level using alternative healthcare methods to communicate with a physician. In the future, telehealth kiosks placed in private areas of locations like pharmacies, schools, big box stores, and large businesses will not only provide access to medical care, but can be outfitted with special tools to help doctors retrieve necessary information like body temperature and blood pressure.
Telemedicine healthcare kiosks can also provide convenience to places with immune-compromised or elderly individuals like group homes and assisted living care facilities. These telehealth kiosks can provide on-site care easily and efficiently, reducing the need to risk exposure at a clinic or make travel arrangements for seniors to visit the doctor.
Conclusion
The pandemic has been a catalyst for innovative healthcare solutions to keep operations moving efficiently while ensuring safety is a top priority. When communities begin to emerge from the shadows again, expect beneficial technologies like patient check-in kiosks and telemedicine options to be a new expectation in the future of healthcare.
The Veterans Affairs Department has paused the rollout of its multibillion-dollar electronic health record project on account of the novel coronavirus, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie wrote in a letter to Congress on Friday.
“The worldwide pandemic created by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has shifted the overall priorities of the Department of Veterans Affairs,” he wrote. “Our priority is the care of veterans and providing surge capabilities for civilian healthcare systems.”
Wilkie said the VA’s office of EHR modernization has shifted to a “non-intrusive posture with VA healthcare operations” so that clinicians can focus on caring for veterans.
This marks the second delay the VA has announced this year for implementing its EHR, a multibillion-dollar contract it struck with Cerner Corp. in May 2018. The VA is co-developing the EHR system with the Defense Department.
The COVID-19 Telehealth Program will provide $200 million in funding, appropriated by Congress as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, to help health care providers provide connected care services to patients at their homes or mobile locations in response to the novel Coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
On April 2, 2020, the Commission released an order establishing the COVID-19 Telehealth Program. The COVID-19 Telehealth Program will provide immediate support to eligible health care providers responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by fully funding their telecommunications services, information services, and devices necessary to provide critical connected care services until the program’s funds have been expended or the COVID-19 pandemic has ended.
Questions about the application process can be emailed to [email protected].
Prior to Filing an Application:
In advance of filing an application, parties should:
Obtain an FCC Registration Number (FRN) from the Commission Registration System (CORES), as well as a CORES username and password at that link. An FRN is a 10-digit number that is assigned to a business or individual registering with the FCC and is used to identify the registrant’s business dealings with the FCC.
Obtain an eligibility determination from the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) by filing FCC Form 460 through My Portal on USAC’s webpage. (Filers do not need to be rural health care providers in order to file Form 460 for this program.)
